IFA 2006: Toshiba announce Gigabeat V Series media player

New widescreen player coming soon

2 September 2006 12:08 GMT / By Stuart Miles

Microsoft might be getting Toshiba to build its new Zune MP3 player, but that hasn't stopped the Japanese company from announcing a new widescreen Media player at IFA 2006 in Germany this week.

The new Gigabeat MEV30K V series media player is the latest addition to its gigabeat line. Adding to the already popular gigabeat S Series portable media players, the V Series features a larger viewing screen and extended battery.

According to Toshiba, the new model will feature a 3.5-inch TFT LCD display, a built-in speaker and utilizes Microsoft's Portable Media Center Version 2.0 software.

The news of the widescreen player comes just days after Creative also launched a widescreen media player at IFA. It's player also features a 3.5inch display, however it doesn't use Microsoft's Portable Media Center interface.

The Gigabeat V series will offer up to 8 hours of video playback and sport a 30GB internal hard disk drive,

The V series supports MP3, WMA, WMA Lossless and WAV audio files and is also compatible with Windows DRM 9 and 10, allowing for music purchase or subscription through services such as Napster

The new gigabeat V Series will sell for $399.99 and will be available for pre-orders exclusively through Amazon.com and Crutchfield.com starting on September 1, 2006. The player will become available via top retailers nationwide in October 2006 in America.

We are awaiting confirmation of when the player will be coming to the UK and how much it will cost.